asalamu alaikum
please dont use Mawdoodi, there are many errornous udnerstandings with regards to the creed in Allah and His characteristics, and others matters
The english is very poor with regard to having any good tasfeers inenglish
the best one to get is Ibn Kathirs.
I would have to say that the english of Mufti SHafi'ee Uthmaanee tafseer is much better than mawdoodee. However I would say the only thing as far as I have seen that may be of misconstruence is his attribution of holding the aqeedah of the salaf , he attributed this creed to the later sufi Imaams. ALthough this term holds such a wide spectrum of what tassawuf is, it would hav been better to leave the correct creed that he did lay out to the salaf and those who followed them since the phrase "sufi Imaams' in more cases than not does not fall into the "creed of the salaf" and the vast medival works bear clear witness to this.
leaqrn arabic, that is the key
if you do the first begginner trafseer would be Imaam Abdur-Rahman Bin Naasr as-S'adi's tafseer "tayseer al Quraan al-Kareem" I beleive is the title.
with regards to understanding the quraan in the true literary purport of the actual arabs of the prophets time and the super linguistical nature of how it wasa perceived in their minds, then Imaam MUhammad al-Ameen ash-Shanqeeti's tafseer "Adwaanul-Bayaan" is the best of the business, but it is very voluminous, like 15 volumes in arabic as opposed to Ibn Kathirs 4 volume one.
asalamu alaikum
